Page 7 of Unresolved

She’d been smart enough to squirrel away any cash he’d gifted her, then afterward had sold every piece of expensive jewelry he’d bought her.It’d been enough to buy this apartment outright, under another name, another persona.

My mother had been pregnant when she’d disappeared from my sperm donor’s life.She’d given birth to me nine months later, a home birth aided by a trainee midwife who’d been more than happy with a bundle of cash for her trouble.

I pushed aside nostalgia and a prickling of heat in my eyes as I turned left, between two garden beds filled with petunias and dahlias, the rusty-red cobbled path making me feel welcome every time I traversed it.

I took the railed stairs, climbing to the third level, then walked along the covered walkway before stopping at my apartment.Pushing in my key, I swung open the door.I sighed, smiling as I stepped into the sanctuary my mother and I had created together.

Lavender walls were offset by soft gray furniture, including the sofa and armchairs with their deep, padded cushions, and the white marble dining table with its dove gray seats.A large, gold-framed landscape I’d painted featuring a sage green mountain and the setting sun in various shades of orange and pink hung above the flat screen television in the lounge room.

A charcoal-gray fluff-ball padded toward me with a pitiful meow and I bent and scratched under his chin.“Did you miss me, Rembrandt?”

He purred and I laughed as I picked him up and snuggled him.“You’re precious, but I bet you know that already.”

He purred louder and I put him back down, opening a can of wet food for him.While he ate it like he hadn’t eaten in a week, I poured a glass of red wine, then stepped back out onto the balcony that faced a park.

I took a seat at the small square table and raised the glass to my lips, taking a deep, appreciative sip.This was my favorite time of the day, with the sun going down and glittering through the leaves, turning them a burnished gold.

I sighed and leaned back, my eyes taking in the landscape as I imagined it would look on a canvas.

Most nights I didn’t bother with dinner, my spare time was taken up doing what I loved.If I was happy, I painted.If I was sad or stressed, I painted.

Today would be no different.

But first I’d savor my wine and enjoy what was left of the day.

Rembrandt padded outside, then standing on his hind legs, his front paws on my closest thigh, he checked to see if my lap was free before he jumped and plonked himself down, then began purring.

I laughed as I ran my hand over his silky soft head and back.“You’re just what I need right now.”I sighed softly.“Are you going to be happy in another apartment in the city?”I chewed my bottom lip.“Or perhaps we’ll move far away from here, someplace random in the country, and start again?”

I lifted my glass and took another sip of my red wine just as movement caught my eyes.

My heart jerked.

I’d seen something...someone as they’d stepped behind a tree.I was certain of it.

I should leave now while I still could, but it was nearly dark outside and I didn’t fancy my chances of staying in a motel with a cat squawking in his carrier cage.

Rembrandt meowed, as though sensing my anxiety, then jumped off me with his fluffy tail swishing.I pushed to my feet and hurried inside, rinsing out my glass then changing into black-faded-to-gray leggings and an old, paint-splattered T-shirt that had once been white.

Making my way barefooted into what had been my old bedroom, and which I’d converted into my art room after my mom had gone, I was soon lost in my own creative world, brushing a silvery misty sky that was atmospheric and somehow chilling.I added olive-colored leafy trees that overhung a pathway that drew the eye to a distant figure in black.

I gasped, realizing I’d painted the figure I’d seen earlier.A figure who’d materialized in my work just as he had in my reality.I unlocked my fingers and my paintbrush clattered onto the floor even as I backed away.The landscape was beautiful, haunting and magical.Butthatfigure really was all too familiar.

A tread sound behind me, yet I couldn’t move a muscle.I could barely breathe.

“Hello, Gemma.”

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